What One Must
by DuchessRaven
Summary: What Alucard and Integra must do behind closed doors to keep desire from interferring with duty. Oneshot


AUTHOR'S NOTE: I had to write this, because it wouldn't leave my head and I couldn't study. I'm still on break from writing in general, but YOU try studying accounting with THIS THING in your head.

Please note that this story IS rated M. Do not keep reading if the topic offends you. If you do read, please review

WHAT ONE MUST

It usually took place around dusk, when the sun had just settled below the horizon, leaving its last traces of warmth and orange light in the air, paving the path for the rising moon. It was at this hour, when the city began to wind down and get ready for the coming night, that she usually went to her room, and he woke from old dreams in the dungeons below.

No one ever questioned her closing her bedroom door just before dinner time. She was the boss, after all, and could do as she pleased. The soldiers and staff did not question nor care about the few minutes she took for herself out of her daily ritual. She was only human, and could no carry on indefinitely. Her faithful butler assumed that she took a short nap or a hot bath to rejuvenate before continuing her evening's work. It was nothing unusual. She rose too early and retired too late.

No one care what the vampire did. With the exception of his master, no one ventured to disturb the creature in the darkness below the manors.

She always locked the door.

He always left the lid of his coffin closed.

She always left her clothes and undergarments in a neat pile, for she is nothing if not organized.

Sometimes he allowed his clothing to vanish, and laid with darkness embracing his bare skin.

Sometimes she laid on the bed. Other times she drew a bath. Sometimes she used lavender oil.

He was always in his coffin.

It was always his battles she thought of first. The battles he fought for her. There were so many, day after day. There were times when she joined him in the battlefield. She never enjoyed killing, vampire or otherwise, but she couldn't help but take pride in doing it well, keeping up with him. She hated war, but she loved to feel her heart pound, loved to hold a sword in her hand. And she loved, above all, how he would occasionally look her way, and smirk just a little. It was at that moment, that she knew, even though he fought in the front line, he viewed her as his equal. His better.

He thought of the battlefield, too. But he relished the thought of blood more than anything else. When the air was thick with it, the blood, the scent of massacre. That was when he felt most alive, or as alive as he could be. It made him hungry. It made him burn with yearning from deep inside. But to enjoy it alone was lonely. And after five hundred years, he had grown weary of loneliness. That was why he loved to see her beside him. To see her spill the blood of others, to watch it stain her clothing. And after it was all said and done, he loved more than anything to see her standing there in the moonlight, the gleam of savage pride in her eyes.

She would think of him, fighting for her.

He would imagine her, wearing the blood of others and nothing else.

On some nights she thought of their past. The time she twisted her ankle on the range and he had carried her back to the mansion. She was fourteen years old, but not too young to be intensely aware of how very close he was, and how strong. Several times after that, when she was injured, be it by a stray bullet or a vampire's claws, he always did the same. There may be other men around, policemen, government officials, and her own soldiers, who offered to help. But he always came forward, and they would step back in silence, as he picked her up without a word, and carried her to safety. She always noticed that he held her a little tighter than was necessary.

He always feared losing her. And sometimes he thought that it was this fear that drove his desire even more. He always worried that one day, she, the woman who remains so stubbornly human, would meet her end, and he would be left with naught. Everyday could be her last. That was the way of their business. Everyday there could be a gun pointed at her cheat, and everyday he feared he would not be there to stop it. When she was wounded it was always hard to suppress his anger, sadness, and anxiety, but he tried, and he did well. He hoped that she never noticed how hard he gripped her, afraid that the hands of death or others may tear her away.

She imagined him, laying next to her.

He imagined her, naked limbs tangled in his.

She wanted his cold skin, his bare chest, gliding across her torso. She thought of his strong hands roaming her body, exploring her nooks and crevices, his icy lips in the crooks of her neck. She thought of these things as she laid alone in her dark bedroom, the outside world forgotten.

He pictured her, bared in all her glory, straddling his body. Her soft, creamy skin within reach; those ample breasts she insists on hiding behind stuffy suits free of constraints. Her long hair brushing against his face as they ravaged each other.

She heard him confess all manners of hidden desires.

He heard her begging him to give her more, as he thrust deeper inside her.

In the deep halls of the Hellsing manor, no one heard these unspoken words. But they heard them, each in their own minds, and that was enough.

She loved it when he called her "master".

He relished the sound of her speaking the word "servant".

She had the pick of every handsome, well-bred young aristocrat in England.

He could take any woman under his power, his luscious fledgling included.

But they wanted what they could not have. They wanted the one thing that was kept from them by their duty. To England, to God, to the Queen. And so they are behind two locked doors, nearly every dusk, right as the moon makes its way to the sky.

On more than one occasion they climaxed at the same time, though both were unaware of this fact.

Then, she would dress herself, neatly and primly.

He would rise out of his coffin, and suit up for another night of hunting.

More often than not, he would arrive at her office mere moments after she did. She would be stately and dignified, not a hair out of place. He would bow.

"Good evening, master," he would say.

"Good evening, servant," she would reply, followed by the usual orders. "There is a disturbance on the north side. Take care of it."

"Yes, master," and he would turn to leave. She would watch him got out of the corner of her eye, drinking in his form and presence. He would linger at the door, just long enough to watch her brush a strand of blond hair out of her face.

Neither knew for sure of the other's desire, but both suspected it strongly. Still, it was not up to their to fulfill this desire, for duty always, always came first. And so they do what they must, to keep desire from interfering with duty.

And so began and ended another day within the walls of Hellsing.


End file.
